Usefulness of epicardial impedance evaluation for epicardial mapping and determination of epicardial ablation site for ventricular tachycardia: A pilot study

Background During epicardial mapping, determination of appropriate ablation sites in low voltage areas (LVA) is challenging because of large epicardial areas covered by adipose tissue. Objective To evaluate the impedance difference between epicardial fat and the epicardial LVA using multiple detector computed tomography (MDCT). Methods We enrolled patients who underwent ventricular tachycardia (VT) ablation via the epicardial approach after endocardial ablation failure. After the procedure, MDCT-derived images of epicardial fat were loaded to the mapping system. Then, all points acquired during sinus rhythm were retrospectively superimposed and analyzed. Results This study included data from 7 patients (62.5 ± 3.9 years old) who underwent 8 epicardial VT ablation procedures. After the procedure, MDCT-derived images of epicardial fat were registered in 8 procedures. Retrospective analysis of 1595 mapping and 236 ablation points was performed. Of the 1595 mapping points on the merged electroanatomical and epicardial fat maps, normal voltage area (NVA) and low voltage area (LVA) without fat had lower impedance than those with fat (NVA without fat 182 ± 46 Ω vs. NVA with fat 321 ± 164.0 Ω, P = 0.001, LVA without fat 164 ± 69 Ω vs. LVA with fat 248 ± 89 Ω, P = 0.002). Of the 236 ablation points, initial impedance before ablation was higher on epicardial fat than on epicardial LVA without fat (134 ± 16 Ω vs. 156 ± 28 Ω, P = 0.01). Conclusions Real time epicardial impedance evaluation may be useful to determine effective epicardial ablation sites and avoid adipose tissue. However, the number of patients in the present study is limited. Further investigation with a large number of patients is needed to confirm our result. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved